According to a new poll of municipal councils, English councils are planning to offload community centers, athletic facilities, and retail spaces as they rely on a fire sale of assets to stabilize finances.
Growing Fiscal Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that 60% of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Local governments have in the past come under fire for disposing of playing fields and land to support their budgets, but they contend they must continue to generate essential revenue from property disposals or face insolvency.
The group noted that a high proportion of councils seeking to raise money from a fire sale of assets represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (60%) of municipal officials said they would prioritise service redesigns and utilising financial reserves to manage increasing financial challenges.”
Detailed Examples of Planned Disposals
Medway Council in southeast England announced its asset disposal plan included the disposal of a retail complex in a local town and a social club in another town to raise £20m over five years.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be sold under the plan.
Council Tax Rises and Wider Financial Strains
The survey of local authorities in the key cities group, which includes several urban centers, further found that over seven in ten of authorities will need to raise local levies next April to address the rising cost of essential services, higher levels of homelessness, and a persistent accommodation deficit.
The authority said it will press ahead with property disposals after steep rises in the cost of youth support, support for vulnerable learners, elderly and disability services, and short-term housing.
“We are taking innovative approaches but some of these require time to achieve both better provisions and financial savings,” stated Vince Maple.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from over the past decade, which is extremely difficult.”
National Patterns and Forecasts
Research of regional authorities this week further found local finances being strained by the increasing figures of young people and older individuals requiring Send support.
The County Councils Network said that local shortfalls will hit £4.4bn a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with increased demand.
Ministers have put off scheduled changes to the special educational needs framework until next year after a policy document setting out those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Financial Gaps
Based on the most recent indices of deprivation (IMD) covering UK local authorities, several key cities members were among the most disadvantaged in the country.
- “Participating urban centers like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 nationally under the 2025 IMD measures,” said the report.
“While only a single urban area is in the top 10 for disadvantaged communities nationally, cities are far more likely to be in the most deprived fifth of the nation. The figures highlights the scale of challenges confronting local leaders across major urban centers in the coming year,” the report added.
“Council officials have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting funding system that reflects and responds to the actual extent of deprivation and demand,” stated Michael Mordey.
“Lacking this, councils will continue to face impossible choices around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the detriment of their residents.”
One in five of local authorities have cut or compromised care services in the past 12 months, the study found.
